Rob Sanchez' Job Destruction Newsletter:

<<<<< JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER No. 1766 -- 10/06/2007 >>>>>

The Cohen&Grigsby video story (sometimes called tubegate) is still
simmering. Apparently Sen. Grassley and Rep. Smith sent letters to the law
firm asking questions about what was said during the videotaped seminar.
Unfortunately Computerworld didn't post the letters.

The article links to the Programmer's Guild youtube video which contains
some choice excerpts from the Cohen&Grigsby seminar. To see the entire
video series go here:

http://lyrelyrepantzandfier.com/

Computerworld allows readers to post comments to the story.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +

http://www.computerworld.com/action/art ... Basic&taxo
nomyId=10&articleId=9041119&intsrc=hm_topic

Hiring video's aftermath: Law firm says words ill-chosen, but advice proper
Patrick Thibodeau
October 05, 2007 (Computerworld) The law firm that last spring
inadvertently gave H-1B visa opponents a YouTube sound bite for the ages
said in a lengthy letter to two federal lawmakers that it "regrets certain
ill-chosen language" but did nothing legally or ethically wrong.

Pittsburgh-based Cohen & Grigsby PC sent the letter to Sen. Chuck Grassley
(R-Iowa) and Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) in July, after the two congressmen
had written the law firm with questions about a video posted on YouTube
LLC's Web site featuring clips from a seminar that Cohen & Grigsby held May
15. During the seminar, attorneys from the firm's immigration law group
provided advice on hiring foreign nationals and obtaining green cards for
workers from overseas.

Grassley's office provided a copy of Cohen & Grigsby's letter to
Computerworld this week, following a request for the document. It also
released a letter to Grassley from Emily Stover DeRocco, assistant
secretary for training and administration at the U.S. Department of Labor,
who wrote that the DOL was reviewing green card applications filed by Cohen
& Grigsby for clients "to verify that U.S. workers who applied but were not
selected for advertised positions were rejected for lawful reasons."

DeRocco's letter was a response to a request made by Grassley and Smith to
DOL Secretary Elaine Chao, in which they asked the agency to review the
YouTube video and investigate the law firm's procedures.

A spokesman for Grassley said this week that the senator's office believes
the Labor Department will "properly review" the green card applications
submitted by Cohen & Grigsby. DOL officials couldn't be reached for comment
on the matter, and the law firm declined to comment through a spokeswoman.

As part of the Program Electronic Review Management (PERM) process, which
is one of the steps in obtaining a green card, employers are required to
place help wanted ads, with the intent of either hiring U.S. workers or
showing that no qualified Americans are available for the job that a
foreign national holds or is seeking.

However, the positions advertised for under the PERM process are derided as
"fake jobs" by critics, who contend that the employers aren't seriously
looking for candidates other than the foreign workers they already have in
mind. Immigration law attorneys have argued in many cases that companies
are simply seeking to hire an H-1B worker who may be a multiyear employee
but whose temporary visa has reached its end.

The issue is a volatile one, and it exploded into public view last June.
Cohen & Grigsby taped portions of its hiring practices seminar and posted
the videos on its Web site, evidently for marketing purposes. But when Kim
Berry, president of the Programmers Guild in Summit, N.J., saw the video,
he annotated excerpts of it and posted his version on YouTube.

The most memorable part of the YouTube video is two sentences uttered by
Lawrence Lebowitz, an attorney at Cohen & Grigsby, during an explanation of
the PERM application process to employers. "Our goal is clearly not to find
a qualified and interested U.S. worker," he said in the video. "And that,
in a sense, sounds funny, but it's what we are trying to do here."

In the letter that Grassley and Smith sent to Chao, they claimed that the
video exposed a "blatant disregard for American workers and [a] deliberate
attempt to bring in cheaper foreign workers through the H-1B program."

But Jack Elliott, the law firm's president, wrote in his July 10 letter to
the lawmakers that Cohen & Grigsby officials "reject any suggestion that
members of the firm have engaged in any conduct that is illegal, abusive,
discriminatory against U.S. citizens or unethical."

Elliott added that the comments about recruitment practices made at the
seminar by Lebowitz and other Cohen & Grigsby employees didn't actually
relate to H-1B visas, "because recruitment is not a part of the normal H-1B
statutory or regulatory scheme." He contended that the discussion of H-1B
visa issues at the seminar "comported in all respects with applicable legal
requirements."

In the case of green card applicants, Elliott argued that many of the
foreign nationals seeking permanent residency status in the U.S. have been
on the job for several years. And by the time an employer decides to apply
for a PERM certification, he wrote, "the company normally has decided that
the foreign national employee is of critical importance to the company."

According to Elliott, the DOL's advertising requirement compels companies
to place help wanted ads for "positions already occupied by a foreign
worker whom the employer is not seeking to replace." The PERM process
wasn't developed by the DOL "to find jobs for U.S. workers," he continued.
"Rather, it is one step in determining whether a foreign national employee
of a U.S. employer ... should be able to obtain permanent resident status
in the United States."

Grassley and Smith, in their letter to the law firm, said comments made in
the video advise potential employers that they can meet the Labor
Department's requirements by advertising positions "in places where they
will not find the most qualified applicant" -- for instance, in
publications with limited circulations.

In response to that point, Elliott wrote in his letter, "It is common and
legal for employers to choose less expensive options that fully meet DOL
requirements."

"We are well aware that many persons who understand the labor certification
process find it unfair to American applicants who are led to believe that
an advertised job posting represents an open position that an employer
wishes to fill immediately," Elliott added. "However, the appropriate
response, we respectfully suggest, is not to challenge those who attempt to
live by the rules, but to change the rules."

Berry called the advertising requirement a sham and said that even if
qualified workers apply for a job, they know they won't get it.

The mission of the Labor Department is to help job seekers, Berry said. But
he claimed that there's a "wide discrepancy" between the DOL's stated
mission and the agency's "condoning of bringing in qualified Americans to
job interviews for the sole purpose of finding some basis to disqualify
them, and to give those jobs to a citizen of another country."

John Miano, the founder of the Programmers Guild, said the YouTube video
will remain "the theme song of any debate" on this issue. Miano doesn't
expect the video to change anything, but he pointed out that when employers
advertise for workers, they attest that they're acting in good faith. That
isn't always the case, he said.


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